


The Monsters We Make

by Ill_Ratte



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Body Image, Crying, Dysphoria, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Monstrous Nines, Trans Gavin Reed, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:27:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24691522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ill_Ratte/pseuds/Ill_Ratte
Summary: Gavin can’t stand to see his own reflection. Nines wants to know why.
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 5
Kudos: 117





	The Monsters We Make

**Author's Note:**

> I’m having a mood so I made this. Comment if you enjoyed

“Why don’t you like mirrors?” Nines asked. He had thought it at him, initially, in the way he spoke with other androids and the computers and even the coffee machine, in the way thoughts seemed to slip from him in that state, half formed and with a life of their own. The thought had clawed around his brain for days, hungry and in wait for when it needed to be heard. 

Gavin, human that he was, hadn’t heard it. Or more likely, as his human was quite adept in at least telling when Nines wanted to convey something, stubborn that he was, Gavin had ignored him. 

So Nines said it in a way Gavin couldn’t ignore. 

When Nines and Gavin, with their newly shared, double income, had moved into the squat condo that was just one shade of disrepair past reputable, they had come across a bit of a problem. While the house was a suitable home, away from the prying eyes of those who would disapprove of a “robot-human homo-transsexual love affair”, as Gavin had so delicately put it, it seemed that the previous owners had seen fit to install a full length mirror in the master bedroom, right at the foot of the bed. 

Gavin had spent the first night cursing as he tried to move it. Nines had thought the gesture had been for Nines own sake, but as the days wore on, and Gavin’s eyes never ceased to glaze over as he looked at the mirror, and as he made sure to change in the far corner of the room, eyes shuffled to the floor, Nines’ concern only grew. 

“I like mirrors just fine.” Gavin scowled. He flipped over the page of the analog book he had been reading. The paper made a hissing noise at the commotion. 

Gavin hadn’t dodged the question, at least. It was a small victory. “You’re sitting with your back to it.” Nines hummed. 

“So are you. Besides, I have a great view of the headboard from here. And your taste in decorations.” 

“My rock collection is wonderful, thank you.” Nines had a habit of balancing the more distinctive rocks he had found on the small plateau of wood that jutted from the wall. Gavin always grumbled about the dangers of them falling off and “bonking” him in the middle of his sleep. Gavin added a few rocks himself, when he thought Nines wasn’t looking. 

“And you’re not looking at the mirror either. Why’s that?” Gavin cocked his eyebrow like that was the end of the argument, before turning back to his book. 

“You know why.” Nines said softly. 

Nines had been designed to kill. He had been designed to blend in, for the most part, but not to integrate. Not to become. Most humans sensed this, even if they couldn’t put words to it.

He looked normal enough, except his teeth were too sharp, his eyes too glassy, and no one took the fact that his eyes could look different places at once well. His nails, if the light hit them just right, glinted like claws of cut glass. Of course, few humans looked beyond his height and his stature. 

It always hurt, more than a little, when a mother would yank her child away from him. Like he was a dog. One wrong move and he’d bite. Looking himself in the mirror was only a reminder of that. 

Gavin’s lips smacked together like he was thinking. 

“They’re afraid of me, Gavin.” When he looked too long, he was afraid of himself. 

“They’re idiots. All of them.” 

‘Are they?’ Nines let the question die at the back of his mind. Instead, he asked, so gentle like he was wading across newly frozen ice, “Are you afraid of what you see, Gavin?”

Gavin stiffened. “Course not. I mean, come on, you’re what? 7 feet tall, and you have fangs?? Not to mention those fuck-me eyes that can turn red. Babe, to put it delicately, you’re hot as fuck.”

Nines never failed to blush at Gavin’s declarations. Even now, he felt a hot sweetness rush through him, like how he imagined the sticks of congealed strawberry syrup that Gavin devoured in the summer felt as they dissolved in the back of his mouth. “That wasn’t what I meant.” He said quietly. 

Gavin’s shoulders sunk. “I know.” 

“You can talk to me, you know.” 

“I know.” Gavin repeated. 

“Why are you afraid of seeing yourself in the mirror, Gavin?” 

Gavin’s eye twitched at “afraid”. “I’m not… afraid.” He spat the last word out, like it was tobacco he had grown tired of chewing. 

“It’s alright to be afraid.”

“I’m disgusted.” 

When Nines looked back, Gavin had buried his face in his arms. 

“You don’t see it, because you don’t want to see it, but when people look at me, all they see is a freak.” 

“That’s not-“

“It is. You didn’t know me. Not before all of this, and certainly not during it. I can’t even leave the house if it’s not with you. They, they hate me. They’re afraid of me and of me touching them and even of me breathing wrong at them. Fuck, they don’t even like it when I’m breathing, period.”

“Baby-“

“I don’t want to keep seeing what they see, whenever I look in that goddamn mirror. I don’t want to keep seeing what I’m not.” Gavin’s voice cracked on the last word. 

Nines reached out, tentative at first, and patted his hair. Small sobs hiccuped from Gavin. Nines held him until they stopped. 

“You must think I’m pathetic.” He whispered. “Never seen you crying about this shit.” 

“I’m incapable of crying, Gavin.” He rubbed up and down Gavin’s back. “And you’re not disgusting. Not to me.” 

“Yeah, Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

“I mean it. I like how small you are, how neatly you fit in my arms. The way my hand slots perfectly against the curve of your hip, like it was made to rest there. How warm you are, how soft you are, the scratch of your stubble on my chest and my face when we’re cuddling, how you like to sing to me, when you think I’m in stasis and can’t hear you.” 

Gavin’s face had blossomed cherry. “I don’t believe you. You’re just saying shit to make me feel better.”

“What if I showed you?”

Gavin cocked an eyebrow. His arms were crossed over his chest. “Showed me?”

Nines simply raised his hand, letting it project onto the mirror. 

The first memory was when he first saw Gavin. Bluish tones of wariness overlaid the image, washing to yellow-green curiosity as Gavin looked up to see Nines. The sight of large eyes, staring in wonder up at him, turned the curiosity to deep, Amber affection. 

The next memory was their first date. Gavin looked nervous, fidgeting with the hem of his baby blue shirt, and Nines had focused on the way his cute little fangs nibbled at his plump lower lip. Amber furled from Gavin in waves. When Gavin’s hand reached out and took his, bright pink sparks split the screen. 

The next memories were blurs of information. Of Gavin’s face, his body, the soft swell of his chest as Nines nuzzled into it, the warm, heady smell of Gavin’s cunt as Nines went down on him. The way Gavin’s eyes fluttered whenever Nines touched him. 

When the images petered to nothing, Gavin sat stock still. His mouth had fallen open. 

“Are you alright?” Nines asked. He reached out, dragging Gavin to his chest. Gavin didn’t resist. 

“Why? How can you see… that when you look at me?” Tears had gathered again in Gavin’s eyes. 

“Because I love you. You mean everything to me. And in the words of one of the greatest minds of the 21st century, ‘you’re hot as fuck’.”

Gavin laughed. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

“I do look weird.” Nines nodded sagely. Gavin stuck his tongue out at that. 

“It’s just… hard to see it sometimes, I guess. That’s all. But thanks.”

Nines quirked the edges of his lips into a smile. “I know. But I’ll be right besides you, helping you to see it.”


End file.
